Whole life insurance as an investment.

[Snydley]

Buying whole life insurance was one of the worst things I ever did. Once I realized it was suspect (after my financial advisor called me about buying a policy for my 6 year old) I googled something like "whole life investment" and was completely sickened by what I found. NO ONE thinks buying whole life is a good idea, not Suzy Orman, not Money magazine,...NO ONE. I didn't sleep all night that night. We had been contributing $1,000 a month for over a year and a half.

We decided to cancel our policy, and the company told us they were keeping ~80% of our contributions. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! It should be a crime to sell these policies. We lost 16K and honestly we were just so glad we figured it out because if we didn't come to our senses that fast we would have lost an absolute ton of our money.

[disneysteve]

Buying whole life insurance was one of the worst things I ever did.
We had been contributing $1,000 a month for over a year and a half.

We decided to cancel our policy, and the company told us they were keeping ~80% of our contributions.

I got suckered into a whole life policy when I was young and stupid. I eventually cancelled it and paid the surrender fee. Thankfully, I got really lucky. My policy was covered in the massive class action lawsuit against the insurance companies for misrepresenting whole life policies as investments. I ended up getting back everything I had paid in.

What is really sad is that despite that lawsuit, nothing at all has changed. The companies are still doing the exact same thing.

[Jsteinkruger]

I don't see how people find these appealing at all and maybe its because I am looking them up online. I remember being intrigued by it once a few years ago and then I compared it to other investment options and other insurance options. One thing I noticed while looking it up again today was with my insurance company for 100k whole like you pay $90 but for 250k term life you pay about $15-20, for my there is more potential in other investment options, but again. I guess its hard to make a distinction if you have an insurance salesman in your face...Thank god for the internet!